farmerjo

At least at the end of the day your in control of the losses that you weren't from the local millers. Would be good if you can give us an update after a few goes with it.

I sent a bag off to the local village miller to confirm my thoughts about the need of a rotary screen. Hand cut rice would be ok with the home machines as mainly only chaff to separate. Harvester cut rice taking weed seeds as well doesn't fair so well.

You may be able to re registar on this link. http://roi.in.th/kubotaSparePart_demo/kpad.php

Today decided to start off loading our rice. Price up to 10.8 baht/kilo for hom mali. Passed all the sampling tests as we cleaned it,only dodgy thing was when the guy put it through the moisture meter it read 16% but on the docket it was 1.3.2.% so not sure what went on there but in our favour.Maybe having a grumble to them about putting hooks through our new 8 baht bags to empty them helped. Told the mrs to take her ag extension green book in case the pledge upgrade was on the cards but was not mentioned and they paid in cash. Would have liked to hold onto it for another month but the risk out ways the reward. .

https://irrigationdirect.com.au/product/duplex-full-part-circle-sprinklers/ This is the sprinkler i have,comes with a range of nozzles and table of requirements It is critical to match up the flow and pressure otherwise you won't get an even distribution of water over the area. You can adjust it from full circle coverage so can also set up on edge of field for 180 or in corners for 90 degree coverage. I bought it at global house about 15 years a go. This pump does achieve the 5 bar pressure required with the 3 v-belts driving it from the 14 horsepower diesel engine. The other consideration is the size of pipe from pump to sprinkler,you don't want any friction loss so bigger the better.

Here is some pictures of mobile set up i have. For the big impact sprinkler i use a multi stage pump to get the required pressure.

A friend down the road just rented their land out for sugar for four years,1000 baht/rai/year. The total money is given up front. I tried to give my advice and explain if they trashed rice in on the same land they would get more than double the money over the 4 years as long as the subsidies continue which i think they will. So from my perspective 2000/rai for rent would be closer to the mark as the soil fertility is depleted yearly as well

A happy and prosperous new year to all. Everyone around here seemed to enjoy the festivities and now with the hoards heading back to Bangkok it's business as usual. Rice done,Cassava done and sugar harvest back in full swing around here. Noticed just before new year sugar had jumped up to 1250/ton. I'm still waiting to put an alternative crop in as weather is still a bit cool for good growing conditions. A neighbor put some corn in last month but not growing at all well. Going to be interesting to see how many legume crops go in with the price of fertilizer this year.

Looks the goods IA. Only questions to ask would be if different screens sizes(for dehulling different seeds) are available and spare parts for the polishing section. I think with that type of mill you would still have to pick out a certain amount of impurities after milling if the paddy is not clean. The big company millers use a rotary screen after milling to achieve that. Having said that owning your own machine would give great flexibility to mill straight after harvest drying and store eliminating a lot of broken rice. Watching with interest.

If you put a pressure gauge on the outlet,it will be good for 3.2 bar(32 metres) before dropping its rating being a non positive displacement pump.

I've got to go to bed before you get me started on that one???? Been a rough few days,i wlll get over it now i've got it out of the system.

The main reason i blew up about the rice 2nd's was a day earlier the mrs said she wanted to give a bag of hom mali to a neighbour because she only grew sticky rice and no have good rice to eat. I'm sill holding the 115,000 in expenses having not sold any yet. This neighbour has farang in the family and not short of money. I started getting these visions of giving her a bag and all of a sudden turning into father christmas dropping a bag off at all the communities houses as they heard we gave her a bag. Sometimes you have to nip things in the bud before it gets out of hand. Ta add it all started when we finished harvesting the sticky rice,i dropped 50 bags off at the Fil's house. The next morning i drove passed to see him giving it away to the monks. I don't think growing rice will be in the program next year.

????It's the travelling icecream man and his wife from a village away. He turned up,sold us 200 baht of icecreams and got 12 months of chicken feed for free. I'm in the wrong job....

My bleat. Today i wanted to ask my mrs why she didn't put down the max of 40 rai with the pui yai ban since we actually did 87 rai and has cost us 40,000 baht with the assistance. But i didn't because yesty arvo blew up when she decided to give the 2nd's from the cleaning away to a friend for their chickens. Value adding i said,her nobody buy,me well they want them. The sale of the 2nd's would pay the electric bill for cleaning and transport of good rice to the mill. I was still wrong and not kind hearted.

Your not alone KS. Just came back from agriculture extension who by the way are running a money tree to update the building,serious is this what some government departments have to resort to. Anyway i could not have been more wrong with the rice pledging. So in our situation the mrs submitted her rice application with the pu yai ban for growing 15 rai of KK6 rice. 1st payment from BAAC was 15,000 baht which was 1000 rai which everyone receives of amount registered. 2nd payment was 25,125 baht so the government has averaged out growth of KK6 at 400 kilo/rai. 15x400=6000kg. Current price difference is 4.18 baht(garantee price 12 baht,current 7.82) 6000x4.18=25,080 baht. So all the newspaper reports i read about requiring 15% moisture was a farce. No requirement to deliver x amount of grain to the mill. No requirement to prove you actually grew 400kg/rai. The government has just handed everyone the money. I would of preferred that information on my 1st visit. The insult to injury is i've still got another 10 days of cleaning to do then make the storage area lockable and rat proof till the price improves.

Had a quick look and would say same pump fitted to both. Depends if you want a GP or GX series engine. GX seem to be pretty popular with reviews over the years.

Hi djayz You will have to look at the pump curves graph. The different models most likely have different head pressures.

HI KS Finally got out and about today. Sugar has ramped up here as well,driving past the weigh stations they are all pretty consistant at 1130 & 50 a ton.I presume the 50 is CCS content. Even saw some baled sugar leftovers. Went to the rice millers with a sample,was delighted it made grade A after doing the extra work to clean it prior. Only uncertainty was moisture at 15.3% so will put the last of it in the sun for a couple of hours prior to delivery. Would hate to only get the current 10.3 baht/kilo instead of the 15 baht/kilo over such a small percentage and fair bit of extra work. The QA lady there did ask how we got such good colour for around here,so growing on aerobic soils with no lodging as well as being direct seeded does have some advantages around here on a wet year.Just got keep working on weed control to get the yields up.

Progressives,do it but not in my back yard.

You couldn't make it up if they tell you gov give me money for free.???? You said you bought new seed same as i. It pays dividends. Rice was an logical choice for me this year banking on a wet year and it worked out. Only because all our profit will be from the gov. assistance. I'm heading to town tomorrow with a sample of rice so will have more clarity of were we stand as to when i can off load it. Mrs said today after being at local market she was told the payments were 1000 a rai for 15 rai and another 1500 a rai from the gov for new year,chinese whispers i expect. Will get to the bottom of it one day.

???? you put a smile on my face IA.

Good luck with the transition Alex.

Well done,nice to hear. So do all the farmers down your way save and eat hom mali as opposed to up here being sticky rice eaters. The rice you sold IA,was the moisture 15 or under so the extra gov money gets to you. The mrs has received two payments recently from the baac bank for rice. The bank app she has for rice doesn't show anything other than payment,i think one would be the 15 rai subsidy but no clue for the other as together around 40,000 baht. .

New cleaners going well,normally put same sample through 2 times and it looks good. The odd weed seed that's left the mill can sort as i'm selling the lot soon as confirmation of the government rice pledge is sorted. The family think they have other idea's for it like it's(hom mali) some sort of gold here. I already budget buying in cow suey each year so i'm not being double dipped on this one. Have about 3 ton of sticky rice leftover which will be on a truck as well.

Hi IA Just be a bit careful if storing for a long period with that amount of chaff as it can hold moisture in. I thought my harvester samples were pretty good but now i'm cleaning i'm losing about 12% although yours wont be anywhere near that. The positive that out ways the negative of cleaning for me is the millions of weed seeds i've taken out of the field. That Yanmar harvester is a striking look of my Kubota,they must share some knowledge in design. These pictures are from the 1st bag of the day.